Labour draws up equality law revamp that will inflict ‘socialism’ on Britain

Thats not a benefit to employers. Its a perverse incentive by Rachel Reeves to encourage employers to give less work to employees. The work still needs to be done. So both the employer and employee are penalised by this tax. The only beneficiary is HMRC with this tax. Certainly not employers.

Another reason to reform NI!

You don’t get more out of the system if you are a net contributor. That’s the opposite of what the term means. Unless you’re referring to other advantages.

"An authority to which this section applies must, when making decisions of a strategic nature about how to exercise its functions, have due regard to the desirability of exercising them in a way that is designed to reduce the inequalities of outcome which result from socio-economic disadvantage."

It isn't that it is 'objectionable' it is that it is impossible.

And pointing this out is not a thread 'going off the deep end'.

Well, this thread has gone off the deep end a bit (which, to be fair, so did the article).

It's a duty to consider how to address socio-economic inequality- that's all. It's already part of the Equality Act as others have said, and just never brought into force. That's what would usually happen with a law that Parliament has passed, and the only reason it wasn't is because the 2010 election happened and the next Government decided not to. No socialist conspiracy here.

On the substance: it's replicating what already exists with Public Sector Equality Duty for the 9 protected characteristics (race, sex, age, disability etc)- to consider the impact on them.

It doesn't mean not providing public services to others- in fact it might mean the opposite.

An example: some local authorities choose to provide free school meals to all children of primary school age- including the ones from better-off families, precisely because it's better if the poor kids don't stand out. It's a popular policy in areas with very mixed demographics. They're not obliged to do this, and still wouldn't be if the duty were brought in- it can't force them to do anything. But they'd be more likely to consider it, which I can't understand anyone thinking is a bad thing.

Here's the key line from the Act:

"An authority to which this section applies must, when making decisions of a strategic nature about how to exercise its functions, have due regard to the desirability of exercising them in a way that is designed to reduce the inequalities of outcome which result from socio-economic disadvantage."

Is that really objectionable?

If Phillipson got the finger out and sorted the guidance issue, I'd feel a lot more relaxed and positive about this.

I suppose we all look to our own corner and want to either be confident that a government will look after us if needed, or will not tax the hell out of us if we are in the middle somewhere.

This is absolutely what is happening. Educated/middle class women not having children or deferring so the birth rate overall is falling. Except I can see that there are lots of families having children - they are the ones on benefits in social housing. Several of our neighbours are in this situation. They have 6 kids and 3 cars. They’re very good neighbours i should say - but it would be a weird thought that we contribute more to supplement their lifestyle and then would also be behind them in any queue for public services…

I wonder where the threshold will be for deciding on who this applies to because not having to pay a full rent or mortgage and having supplemental benefits on top of income doesn’t immediately equate to a poor lifestyle.

And then I’d say - what public services? Nothing seems to be working anymore. It’s like false advertising. We have institutions like the HSE but if you ever try to report something they say it’s not their jurisdiction. So a lot of things are in name only. Why not just shut all these pointless places down if they don’t do anything. That would save a few quid for the essentials?

Ive given the statistics of who actually mainly earns the money though. In real life. It's SMEs.

Look. If you support a system that means that it's easier for people to be "employees" rather than run businesses (even sole traders) but at the same time disincentivise employers to employ people then soon enough you are going to run out of employers. And then we have even more unemployment. Which means more benefits need to be paid.

It isnt silly to point out no person has ever transitioned from one sex to the other. You are just trying to accuse women who want rights as hating the poor. As if poor people are too thick to understand there are two sexes.

But this is about economics not the ridiculous notion that people can change sex.

I don't have a problem with this. This was part of the original equality act and just never enacted

I go to lots of chin stroking meetings with middle class university educated professionals on how we can for example get people from deprived areas to engage with preventive health services. Of course generally they haven't a clue because they've never lived in those areas or come from families that lived in those areas. I did so can tell them that they need to think beyond just making them free eg are the clinics or classes close to public transport that runs regularly, do the venues feel welcoming. What they really need to do of course is spend time listening to people from those areas and really understand the barriers but that's all very time consuming and annoying. I mean sometimes ppl from deprived areas don't even understand the phrase lived experience or patient engagement! Imagine!!

so if this makes public services more adapted to people from low socioeconomic economic background, that's fine by me. I mean anything that makes services easier to use for all ppl is a good thing

We all do. Relative to the amount we earn

"Ethical" for whom? The person doing the actual work? Basic economic sense would suggest that its good to incentivise rather than penalise the people who earn the money keeping this country afloat? And who pay all these benefits and public sector wages?

Who is employing the employees if you’ve / Labour have hammered the businesses?

Most people who are complaining don't have a sustainable business if they have to pay an ethical amount of tax or offer basic employee rights.

Well that's the question isnt it.

I'd firstly look to Labour's tax policies on employers NI. That's the main reason for the large spike in youth unemployment.

Who do you think pays the wage of an "employee". We do actually need business owners! We can't all work for the state.

And most of the private sector (which pays for the public sector) is made up of SMEs. That's small business owners. Who pay those "relatively high wages as an employee for your entire working life"

"SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) make up 99.9% of the UK private sector business population, totalling roughly 5.5 to 5.7 million businesses. These enterprises employ approximately 60% of the private sector workforce (16.6-16.9 million people) and generate over 50% of all private sector turnover"

Why have we as a society raised people who can't support themselves? Sounds like Our Bad.

Sure. But there are people who exist with a particular view on their sex/gender and the label for such people is trans(gender). They exist. Whatever you think about them, they exist as a group. Arguing otherwise is just weird.

Well its not ideal is it. Do you know how much interest we pay on debt incurred to support those that can't support themselves as they don't have work. And Labour have killed the golden goose by wrecking the jobs market.

Maybe people have to stop expecting to continually gain, and expect to just live consistently. So maybe you don't own a business (because you can't afford the tax etc necessary to run an ethical one), so you earn relatively high wages as an employee for your entire working life and you are content with that.

There’s men who don’t fit stereotypes and women too, that could just be accepted instead.

Depends what you mean by "trans". There are people who are in the process of trying to change sex obviously. But none has yet succeeded.

Realistically most people vote for a government that benefits themselves and their families in some way or at least doesn't shaft them too much. Labour may be attempting (however misguided their attempts) to benefit the poor to get their vote (although looking at recent polling, the poor don't vote Labour any more, rather Reform).

But what's in it for the middle class if their businesses are being taxed to the point that its not worth running one, there's no jobs for their kids, private education is being wrecked, farming is attacked. There's obviously arguments for and against doing those things but human nature would suggest that there's no stake in Labour's society for these people. And they are the ones paying the tax. So the social contract is breaking down.

Its so silly when people say there are no such things as transpeople. Of course there are.

Have Labour’s policies been working as planned so far? Growth hit zero in January and unemployment particularly youth unemployment is up.

They keep squashing aspiration and getting worse results.